Butler
A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses,
the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in
charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have
charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the
entire house and its appearance.[1] A butler is usually male,[2] and
in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is usually a woman,
and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants (such
as footmen) were rarer and therefore better paid and of higher status
than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the
highest servant status. He can also be sometimes used as a chauffeur.
In older houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles
such as majordomo, butler administrator, house manager, manservant,
staff manager, chief of staff, staff captain, estate manager and head
of household staff are sometimes given
[...More...]

Indentured Servants
An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee
(indenturee) within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed
or forced contract (indenture) to work for a particular employer for a
fixed time. The contract often lets the employer sell the labor of an
indenturee to a third party. Indenturees usually enter into an
indenture for a specific payment or other benefit, or to meet a legal
obligation, such as debt bondage. On completion of the contract,
indentured servants were given their freedom, and occasionally plots
of land
[...More...]

SlaverySlaverySlavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied
to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other
individuals, as a de jure form of property.[1] A slave is unable to
withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without
remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer
to this specific sense of legalised, de jure slavery
[...More...]

Social History
Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of
history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden
age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among
scholars, and still is well represented in history departments in
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States
[...More...]

Casks
A barrel, cask, or tun is a hollow cylindrical container,
traditionally made of wooden staves bound by wooden or metal hoops.
Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to
a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. For example, in the UK
a barrel of beer refers to a quantity of 36 imperial gallons
(160 L; 43 US gal). Wine was shipped in barrels of 119
litres (31 US gal; 26 imp gal).
Modern wooden barrels for wine-making are either made of French common
oak (Quercus robur) and white oak (Quercus petraea) or from American
white oak (Quercus alba) and have typically these standard sizes:
"Bordeaux type" 225 litres (59 US gal;
49 imp gal), "Burgundy type" 228 litres
(60 US gal; 50 imp gal) and "Cognac type" 300
litres (79 US gal; 66 imp gal)
[...More...]

English Language
English is a
West Germanic languageWest Germanic language that was first spoken in early
medieval
EnglandEngland and is now a global lingua franca.[4][5] Named after
the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, it
ultimately derives its name from the Anglia (Angeln) peninsula in the
Baltic Sea. It is closely related to the Frisian languages, but its
vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic
languages, particularly Norse (a
North GermanicNorth Germanic language), as well as
by
LatinLatin and Romance languages, especially French.[6]
English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The
earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to
Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are called
Old English
[...More...]

Medieval Latin
Medieval
LatinLatin was the form of
LatinLatin used in the Middle Ages,
primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical
language of Chalcedonian Christianity[dubious – discuss] and the
Roman Catholic Church, and as a language of science, literature, law,
and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its
authors, medieval
LatinLatin should not be confused with Ecclesiastical
Latin. There is no real consensus on the exact boundary where Late
LatinLatin ends and medieval
LatinLatin begins
[...More...]

Medieval Era
In the history of Europe, the
Middle AgesMiddle Ages (or Medieval Period) lasted
from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the
Western
Roman EmpireRoman Empire and merged into the
RenaissanceRenaissance and the Age of
Discovery. The
Middle AgesMiddle Ages is the middle period of the three
traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the
medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself
subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of
peoples, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early
Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period,
including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what
remained of the Western Roman Empire
[...More...]